The Team
Brian Hayman
president / consultant / piano
Two constants have run through my professional life as a metallurgist in a steel company, an executive in a financial services organization, a principal in an international professional service firm, and an independent management consultant: 1) playing piano in jazz ensembles, listening to jazz music, hanging out with jazz musicians and 2) an abiding interest in how people, individually and collectively, learn.
My consulting work had led me to conclude that uncertainty is, arguably, the defining characteristic of our age, and learning how to deal with it creatively rather than defensively, is the defining challenge of our age. The question, without putting too fine a point on it, is inevitably one of figuring out how to prepare for a future that can't be known. What's needed is an approach somewhere between desperately winging it and steadfastly pretending to know more about the future than one is entitled to know. Clearly, an ability to cultivate and sustain a capacity for learning is essential for organizations operating in environments of flux.
What's needed is an approach somewhere between desperately winging it and steadfastly pretending to know more about the future than one is entitled to know.
And there it was ― I had been living with the answer for decades: jazz music. Contrary to how some others have seen the connection, the jazz ensemble is not a metaphor for organizations ― it is an organization in that it is made up of people who come together with something in mind and then set out to do it. And that performance is utterly dependent on the development of a capacity for innovation, learning and change. The history of jazz, from its beginnings in the Mississippi Delta a little over a century ago to a truly global enterprise, is, after all, a history of innovation. A combination of some special spirit and a remarkable ability to give it life has made this possible.
And there it was ― I had been living with the answer for decades: jazz music.
"Getting in the Groove" is the product of that insight: a unique entertainment and learning experience that explores the knowledge and discipline of jazz improvisation and its implications for enhancing organizational performance. Early on in the adventure, I made an important decision. I'd not lecture on what people might learn from the improvised performance, but simply provide them with an unmediated encounter with jazz musicians making music. I would then work with the observations and insights that were generated from this encounter with the music and conversations with the people who made it.
Early on in the adventure, I made an important decision. I'd not lecture on what people might learn from the improvised performance, but simply provide them with an unmediated encounter with jazz musicians making music. I would then work with the observations and insights that were generated from this encounter with the music and conversations with the people who made it.
I've made some dumb decisions in my time, but this, I'm happy to report, wasn't one of them. And a great bonus has attached to this choice: people have noticed things in the improvised performance that had never occurred to me! Pretty cool, huh? To a large extent this has been a function of the perspectives that participants bring to the experience: engineers in industry; clinicians in hospitals; students and faculty in colleges and universities; ITers in high tech firms; specialists in consultancies; policy developers in government have all come away with insights and learnings that reflect their own needs and interests.
